Hat-Trick Win for Punjab in IPL 7: Defeats Sunrisers by 72 Runs as Maxwell Shines Again

IPL 7

Hat-Trick Win for Punjab in IPL 7: Defeats Sunrisers by 72 Runs as Maxwell Shines Again

Maxwell who played a crucial role in Punjab chasing a big target also played a crucial role in setting the target. For the first time in the tourney Punjab bowlers also played well and the team won their third league match in IPL 7.

Sharjah: Kings XI Punjab played against Sunrisers at Sharjah and because of Maxwell’s destructive batting, won by a huge margin of 72 runs. Maxwell who played similarly in the previous two matches missed the century this time also. He scored 95 runs in 43 balls. Sehwag and Pujara gave good start to the innings. Sehwag scored 30 in 22 balls and Pujara’s score was 35 in 32 balls with four boundaries.

Punjab lost the toss and was asked to bat first. The team scored only three runs in the first two overs. But from the third over, the match was completely changed. Maxwell’s magic started in the tenth over and continued till the 18th over. He came to batting in the seventh over in place of Veerendra Sehwag. In the first six balls he made five runs. In the tenth over he gave a catch which was missed. Sunrisers paid a big penalty for missing the catch. In the specified twenty overs, the team scored 193 runs by losing six wickets.

Though all other bowlers failed, Bhuvneshwar gave only 19 runs in four overs and claimed 3 wickets. Amit mishra gave 56 runs in 4 overs. Maxwell played 11 balls of Amit Mishra and scored 36 runs. In all the three league matches that Punjab played in IPL 7 till now, Maxwell is awarded the Man of the Match.

Sunrisers team has hitters such as Finch, Warner, Dhawan and Sammy and everybody expected that the team will fight to chase the target. But the team did not show any fighting spirit in any stage of the match. Punjab bowlers failed in the last two matches but in this match their performance was excellent. Sunrisers lost three key wickets when the team score was just 33 runs. Dhawan, Finch and Warner were out and at a time it seemed that Sunrisers cannot cross the hundred run mark.